Gas cutters being brought to take out bodies

PTI

Kolkata, 19 July 2010: Heavy-duty gas cutters were being brought from Panagarh to extricate bodies trapped in the mangled coaches of Vananchal Express which was hit in the rear by the Uttarbanga Express early today at the Sainthia station. "The National Disaster Management forces, including the BSF and police are extricating bodies from the severely damaged coaches at the Sainthia station," West Bengal Director General of Police Bhupinder Singh said.

 

Singh, who was en route to Sainthia, said that there was a scarcity of blood at the Suri and Sainthia hospitals where the injured were taken to. "The police are arranging blood from the Burdwan Medical College and Hospital and are also looking for donors to meet the scarcity of blood," the DGP said. He said that many of the injured passengers and bodies were yet to be extricated which required heavy duty gas cutters.

 

 

Major train collisions in the past

The Uttarbanga-Vananchal Express collision is one of many such train accidents, caused by collision, in the last two decades. Below is the list of major train collisions:

May 28, 2010 – Over 140 killed as the Gyaneshwari Express train, derailed by Maoists, is hit by a passing goods train.

21 October, 2009 – Twenty people killed when locomotive of Goa Express rammed the rearmost carriage of stationary Mewar Express near Mathura, Uttar Pradesh.

August 2, 1999 - Two hundred and sixty eight killed and 359 injured in a collision involving Awadh-Assam Express and Brahmaputra Mail at Gaisal in North Frontier Railway’s Katihar division.

November 26, 1998 - Over 212 killed when Jammu Tawi-Sealdah Express rammed into three derailed bogies of Amritsar-bound Frontier Golden Temple Mail at Khanna.

18 April 1996 - Sixty killed as Gorakhpur-Gonda passenger train rams into a stationary goods train at Domingarh near Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh.

August 20, 1995 - Three hundred and fifty eight killed as Delhi-bound Purushottam Express rams into the stationary Kalindi Express near Firozabad in Uttar Pradesh.

September 21, 1993 - Seventy-one killed as Kota-Bina passenger train collides with a goods train near Chhabra in Rajasthan.

25 June 1990 - Sixty killed when a goods train collided with a passenger train at Mangra in Daltongunj in Bihar.